StubHub President Chris Tsakalakis has been tapped to deliver a keynote speech at Ticket Summit 2009 Vegas.
Although Tsakalakis took a circuitous route to the secondary ticket industry, he is now one of its giants. After graduating from the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics, Tsakalakis worked as a consultant for Bain & Company. He then held management positions at a few startup ecommerce companies and consulting firms before moving on to eBay.
After joining eBay in 2003, Tsakalakis worked his way up to become the Vice President of Advanced Solutions. In this role, he oversaw several areas, including eBay Stores, ProStores and the eBay Developers Program.
Tsakalakis finally delved into the secondary ticket industry in 2007 when eBay acquired StubHub. Tsakalakis was chosen to manage the integration of the two companies, and was later named President of StubHub, as well as General Manager of eBay Tickets.
As President, Tsakalakis has overseen some of the most revolutionary partnerships in secondary ticket industry history. In 2007, StubHub signed an exclusive deal with MLB to be their official online reseller. Similar deals were signed in 2008 with Madonna for her Sticky and Sweet tour, and in 2009 with the Broadway musical Jersey Boys.
These deals, along with Tsakalakis’s overall knowledge and vision of the secondary ticket industry, made him an easy choice as a keynote speaker for Don Vaccaro, CEO of TicketNetwork.
“We are pleased to have selected our esteemed industry peer Chris Tsakalakis to deliver the keynote address at Ticket Summit,” Vaccaro said. “His insight of the e-commerce and ticketing sectors will prove to be extremely valuable to industry professionals and conference attendees at a pivotal time in the ticketing sector.”
For his keynote speech, Tsakalakis plans on discussing many issues.
“I’ll touch on a variety of items including the state of StubHub, how prices in the industry have improved our perception among consumers, increased government scrutiny of secondary industry, challenges we all need to address in the secondary ticket industry,” Tsakalakis said.
Tsakalakis is also looking towards the future of the secondary ticket industry, which he says will undoubtedly focus more on the customer’s interests.
“It’s always been hard to predict anything in this industry but the one constant we can control is continued focus on the customer who is the key to our growth,” he said. “We hope we’ll see more relaxation in prices as more and more consumers have leveraged our industry for value. More collaboration is needed between primary and secondary as well.”
Ticket Summit 2009 will take place from July15-17 at The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. Tsakalakis is scheduled to make his keynote address on July 16 at noon.
